standing in the grass. Perhaps there are more
still. I sweep the line. Yes, far, far away I can see four heads in a
row. Heads and necks rise above the grass. But so far away! Are they
birds, or only posts made alive by my imagination? I look again. I
believe I was deceived. They are nothing but stakes. See how in a row
they stand. I smile at myself. Just then one of them moves, and another
is pulled down suddenly into the grass. I smile again. "Ten great blue
herons," I say to myself.

All this has detained me, and meantime the kingfisher has taken wing and
gone noisily up the creek. The marsh hawk appears once more. A
killdeer's sharp, rasping note--a familiar sound in St. Augustine--comes
from I know not where. A procession of more than twenty black vultures
passes over my head. I can see their feet drawn up under them. My own I
must use in plodding homeward.

ON THE BEACH AT DAYTONA.

The first eight days of my stay in Daytona were so delightful that I
felt as if I had never before seen fine weather, even in my dreams. My
east window looked across the Halifax River to the peninsula woods.
Beyond them was the ocean. Immediately after breakfast, therefore, I
made toward the north bridge, and in half an hour or less was on the
beach. Beaches are much the same the world over, and there is no need to
describe this one--Silver Beach, I think I heard it called--except to
say that it is broad, hard, and, for a pleasure-seeker's purpose,
endless. It is backed by low sand-hills covered with impenetrable
scrub,--oak and palmetto,--beyond which is a dense growth of
short-leaved pines. Perfect weather, a perfect beach, and no throng of
people: here were the conditions of happiness; and here for eight days I
found it. The ocean itself was a solitude. Day after day not a sail was
in sight. Looking up and down the beach, I could usually see somewhere
in the distance a carriage or two, and as many foot passengers; but I
often walked a mile, or sat for half an hour, without being within hail
of any one. Never were airs more gentle or colors more exquisite.

As for birds, they were surprisingly scarce, but never wanting
altogether. If everything else failed, a few fish-hawks were sure to be
in sight. I watched them at first with eager interest. Up and down the
beach they went, each by himself, with heads pointed downward, scanning
the shallow water. Often they stopped in their course, and by means of
laborious flappings he